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Article: It's Time For the Wild's Pressure To Create Some Diamonds


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GM should definitely be on the hot seat this season (7th season).  Then coach & aging vets (Spurg, Brod, Zuccy, Foligno, Hart, Trenin) should feel the heat this season if we're unable to make it out of the first round of the playoffs.  If Hynes and his staff can't coach-up Ohgren and Yurov to surpass the likes of JoJo, then buh-bye.

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This might not be a popular statement, but the Wild should really try to move Zuccy or at least definitely not extend him.  Top 4 wingers in my opinion should be Kaprizov, Boldy, Tarasenko and hopefully Ohgren or someone brought in via trade.  Zuccy isn’t big and isn’t a bottom 6 player at all.  If Rossi isn’t traded, there is also a chance Yurov moves to a top 4 winger.  I agree the Wild have too many smaller players.  I would like to keep Rossi over Zuccy.

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It is up to Ohgren to prove he is more than a warm body on the 4th line.  Quibble about Mojo, but he offered more at the time than Ohgren did in either stint.

"Too good for the AHL" has to morph into, "I'm going to be a factor in this game night in night out.". Players like Khusnutdinov and Ohgren won't be coddled into "progress" when a team is dead set on winning games.  If you can't provide more than a fast, and defensive, but otherwise unremarkable 30-pt depth forward, that's on the player.

 

 

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If Tarasenko can't find chemistry with someone like Kaprizov, Boldy, Zuccy, Yurov, etc. in the top six and have a bounce back year, he'll be one and done with the Wild, or moved at TDL.

Spurgeon and Brodin have had trouble staying healthy, that's two of the top four.  Brodin is currently injured, how's he going to stay healthy for playoffs especially after the olympics.  It may be time for one if not both depending on how this season goes for them.  Hopefully Buium and Jiricek take some of the load off of them, but that's up to Hynes.

Zuccy should be in his last year, but probably won't be, however, he continues to impress me with what a high-IQ player he is on the ice, same with Rossi.

Foligno's will be 34 yrs old this season, a great leader, but his style of game doesn't age well, he was at least somewhat healthy last season.  Between him and Trenin, I'd rather have Foligno, but having both players seems redundant with limited roster spots.

The Wild can't go back to the country club days.

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3 hours ago, WildNotMild said:

This might not be a popular statement, but the Wild should really try to move Zuccy or at least definitely not extend him.

I like Zuc, he plays consistently good hockey.  But I agree with you.  He lost a step and isn't top 6 anymore.  I'm hoping he retires.  I would have liked that extra $4M for a potential signing.

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15 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

I like Zuc, he plays consistently good hockey.  But I agree with you.  He lost a step and isn't top 6 anymore.  I'm hoping he retires.  I would have liked that extra $4M for a potential signing.

I believe he said he was going to see how this year goes and possibly retire next year. I'm guessing he'll go two more. I still think moving Rossi to wing and having "coach Zuc" mentor him would pay dividends.

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11 minutes ago, Enforceror said:

I believe he said he was going to see how this year goes and possibly retire next year. I'm guessing he'll go two more. I still think moving Rossi to wing and having "coach Zuc" mentor him would pay dividends.

Move Rossi to wing, extend his stick 6 inches and call it a day...

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I’m not getting my hopes up with our highly rated prospect pool. We had one back in early 2010s as well and none of them planned out for shit.

however, I guess it’s better than a poorly ranked prospect system 😂

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Unfortunately for the Wild I don't think Hynes has the coaching chops to take a team on a deep playoff run.  

Putting Rossi on the 4th line and giving Buium a sniff and then going back to Merrill reeks of coaching for his job, rather than coaching to win hockey games. 

Conventional wisdom wins when you have the most talented roster.  When you don't have the most talented roster you need something unconventional to win and stale, conservative, cowardly coaching isn't it. 

Play Buium and Rossi and win or lose...at least they gain valuable experience.

Benching them and losing is a waste of an opportunity.

Fire Hynes and hire.... DeBoer?

Edited by Patrick
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Not much has changed.  The Wild still are an average team that could still make a deep playoff run.  Hynes will likely mess it up again.  He was and continues to be a very poor coach.  Of course if Kirill somehow stays healthy and has an Mvp type of year everyone may look good.

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9 hours ago, greg said:

Not much has changed.  The Wild still are an average team that could still make a deep playoff run.  Hynes will likely mess it up again.  He was and continues to be a very poor coach.  Of course if Kirill somehow stays healthy and has an Mvp type of year everyone may look good.

I disagree with Hynes being a poor coach. Definitely not elite but I think he did a good job delivering his message to the team. A hard training camp woke them up. He got buy in, held players accountable and was able to ride out a black hole of injuries. Yeah we barely made the playoffs but if Kap and Ek didn't get hurt, we could have ridden the momentum from being top of the league straight into the playoffs. We missed advancing by TWO GOALS. I understand the frustration but this team isn't nearly as bad as some make them out to be. 

Hynes doesn't have any playoff success but he does have playoff experience. This coming year, he will have an additional year of playoff experience as well as a full year of experience with this team. It's going to be a fun year to watch and I'm betting if we don't have horrendous injury luck, we'll make a decent push.

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The pressure is always there.  You have to perform to get in the league you have to perform to stay in the league.  The fact that Minnesota fans want a Stanley Cup is not going to make a player play better.  

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